Off-Ramp | 89.3 KPCChttp://www.scpr.org/programs/offramp/
Off-Ramp is a lively weekly look at Southern California through the eyes and ears of radio veteran John Rabe. News, arts, home, life... covering everything that makes life here exciting, enjoyable, and interesting.Is there such a thing as a trust-funded surf gang? It's Palos Verdes' Bay Boyshttp://www.scpr.org/programs/offramp/2015/07/31/43908/is-there-such-a-thing-as-a-trust-funded-surf-gang/http://feeds.scpr.org/~r/kpccofframp/~3/B7-tikM7fn0/
Chris Greenspon | Off-Ramp<img src="http://a.scpr.org/i/c5d672fd3f9bdfbb1b17be17ac29f40a/109505-small.jpg" width="450" height="300" alt="Lunada Bay" />
<p><i>View of Lunada Bay from the Southeast bluff.; Credit: Chris Greenspon/KPCC</i></p>
<p>Lunada Bay is a small, rocky, U-shaped beach on the northwest end of the Palos Verdes Peninsula. The surf spot is legendary for the 20-foot waves that its winter swell brings in — waves that apparently belong to "locals only," according to a group of surfers called the Bay Boys.</p>
<p>Surfing "localism" is the practice of scaring newcomers away from a beach. Surfers may become locals by enduring hazing from current locals in a process that can take years.</p>
<p>Lunada's localism has been in the news on and off for <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/1995-05-08/news/mn-63795_1_lunada-bay">decades</a>, and cropped up again in the Guardian this May, via a <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/travel/2015/may/18/california-surf-wars-lunada-bay-localism-surfing">hidden camera video</a> of surfers boasting about fights and intimidation.</p>
<p>"It was mostly young to middle-aged white guys," says Rory Carroll, the Guardian's west coast correspondent in the United States. Carroll and fellow journalist Noah Smith climbed down Lunada's bluffs with surfboards and a camera in tow.</p>
<p>"The reason there's a lot of space is because we keep it like that. We f---ing hassle people... There's still fights down here. People will just f---ing duke it out, f---ing work your car," one surfer was caught on tape saying. The same voice goes on to say that he's been sued in the process of fighting outsiders off his beach, "You have to f---ing get a lawyer... that's gonna cost you ten grand. I don't wanna go through that s--- again."</p>
<p><img alt="" src="http://a.scpr.org/i/ac60b8d87dbad4a8da5e47c5ada9a790/109509-full.jpg"></p>
<p><em>(A map of Palos Verdes Estates. Lunada Bay is at the west-most point on the map. Credit: <a href="http://www.pvestates.org/">City of Palos Verdes Estates</a>)</em></p>
<p>Repeated assault cases led Torrance-based attorney Michael Sisson to sue the City of Palos Verdes Estates (in addition to bringing lawsuits against nine Lunada surfers) for failing to "protect his clients' civil rights."</p>
<p>One of Sisson's clients was pushed off of an eight-foot cliff and shattered his knee on the rocks below at the hands of eight surfers known as the "Dirty Underwear Gang," at the Indicator, a surf spot one block from Lunada Bay. The city's response? A proclamation, denouncing localism.</p>
<p>"We were unsuccessful in getting an injunction," Sisson said regarding his lawsuit against the city. "They said that they couldn't identify the exact gang members. They didn't have a gang list, like LAPD would have with the Crips or the Blood[s]."</p>
<p>When Carroll and Smith returned to their car after gathering footage, the word "Kooks" (amateur surfers) was scrawled on the windshield in surf wax. They went to the Palos Verdes Police Department to report the vandalism.</p>
<p>"We know all of them... They're infamous around here. They're pretty much grown men in little men's mindset... It literally is like a game with kids on a schoolyard to them," said one officer who was recorded on the Guardian's hidden camera. Carroll says the police told them that if they were assaulted, they would respond to a distress call.</p>
<p>Sisson's solution? Have the police monitor surfing websites for big incoming swells, and then set up patrols around the small bay during the forecasted timeframes to catch Lunada when there are the most surfers there.</p>
<p>Every time the Bay Boys are in the news, says Sisson, they pull back on their aggression and lay low for a while. But even when we were there, there were still several men sitting atop the bluffs. Sisson returned their "stink eye."</p>
<p>Carroll admitted he would not try to surf there again until the city or the locals' attitudes change the way outsiders are treated at Lunada Bay.</p><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/kpccofframp/~4/B7-tikM7fn0" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>Fri, 31 Jul 2015 18:43:24 -0700http://www.scpr.org/programs/offramp/2015/07/31/43908/is-there-such-a-thing-as-a-trust-funded-surf-gang/That song you're wondering about ...http://www.scpr.org/programs/offramp/2015/07/31/43928/that-song-you-re-wondering-about/http://feeds.scpr.org/~r/kpccofframp/~3/ThClGH0D_sQ/
John Rabe | Off-Ramp<p>The song you're wondering about in this week's show — trust me, this is the one — is "Forgotten Dreams," written by <a href="http://www.scpr.org/programs/offramp/2009/12/26/2507/leroy-anderson-the-man-behind-sleighride/">a true Renaissance man, Leroy Anderson</a>, who also wrote "The Typewriter," "Sleighride" and "Trumpeter's Holiday."</p>
<p>Here's <a href="http://www.leroyanderson.com/music.php">a link to many of his tunes</a>, and here is a lovely home performance of this 1954 Top ten hit by Brian Jones.</p>
<p><a href="https://youtu.be/j_apkt1LT_o" title='Brian M Jones performs "Forgotten Dreams"'>Brian M Jones performs "Forgotten Dreams"</a></p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p><br>
</p><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/kpccofframp/~4/ThClGH0D_sQ" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>Fri, 31 Jul 2015 13:27:55 -0700http://www.scpr.org/programs/offramp/2015/07/31/43928/that-song-you-re-wondering-about/Song of the week: 'Stonefist' by HEALTH http://www.scpr.org/programs/offramp/2015/07/31/43776/song-of-the-week-stonefist-by-health/http://feeds.scpr.org/~r/kpccofframp/~3/CfKH_HnKxaA/
Robert Garrova | Off-Ramp<img src="http://a.scpr.org/i/76a5e51aa04d8a535be7cd774df69d8c/109044-small.jpg" width="450" height="300" alt="" />
<p><i>HEALTH
<br /></i></p>
<p>Off-Ramp's song of the week is "Stonefist" by Los Angeles-based noise rockers <a href="http://www.youwillloveeachother.com/">HEALTH</a>. "Stonefist" is off HEALTH's forthcoming album "<a href="http://kingsroadmerch.com/health/">Death Magic</a>," which will be released August 7 via <a href="http://www.lomavistarecordings.com/">Loma Vista</a>. </p>
<p>HEALTH will play at this year's <a href="http://fyffest.com/">FYF Fest</a> in Exposition Park which happens August 22nd and 23rd. </p>
<p>Here's what Hua Hsu recently had to say about the band for <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/07/27/its-all-noise">The New Yorker</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>"Their songs are aggressive and turbulent, as though all four were competing to conjure the most impressive racket."</p>
</blockquote>
<p> </p><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/kpccofframp/~4/CfKH_HnKxaA" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>Fri, 31 Jul 2015 09:28:28 -0700http://www.scpr.org/programs/offramp/2015/07/31/43776/song-of-the-week-stonefist-by-health/A man who grew up on Bunker Hill says 'Get Angels Flight running again!'http://www.scpr.org/programs/offramp/2015/07/30/43891/a-man-who-grew-up-on-bunker-hill-says-get-angels-f/http://feeds.scpr.org/~r/kpccofframp/~3/QYzL9pmjgc8/
John Rabe | Off-Ramp<img src="http://a.scpr.org/i/6841aa2f78a2e377646bc81d2d35b6fe/109429-small.jpg" width="450" height="300" alt="Angels Flight - 1" />
<p><i>Angels Flight Railway first opened in 1901 in downtown Los Angeles. The funicular, which runs from South Olive Street to South Hill Street, has been closed since 2013.; Credit: Maya Sugarman/KPCC</i></p>
<blockquote>
<p>"Angels Flight has been closed almost two years now, and it just breaks our heart every time we go by." — Richard Schave</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The two cars of the Angels Flight funicular railway in downtown Los Angeles have been stuck for years, figuratively and in reality. <a href="http://www.scpr.org/news/2015/07/23/53321/metro-to-investigate-angels-flight/">What looks like a good old-fashioned bureaucratic impasse</a> has kept the historic railway from being reopened to the public for two-plus years now, and boosters are trying a second-order solution.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.change.org/p/eric-garcetti-mayor-of-los-angeles-save-angels-flight">In a Change.org petition</a>, the Angels Flight Friends and Neighbors Society is asking Mayor Eric Garcetti to nudge Sacramento politicians into switching the agency that oversees Angels Flight from the PUC to CalOSHA.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>"Angels Flight is one of the great historic attractions of our city, a palpable link between the lost Victorian neighborhood of Bunker Hill and the vibrant new Downtown below. It is heartbreaking to see the cars and track structure as they are today, dusty and tagged with graffiti. Please, will you step in personally to help cut the red tape in Sacramento and San Francisco so that a pathway to a solution can be identified?" — Angels Flight Friends and Neighbors Society petition</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Last week, the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro) voted to look into getting Angels Flight going again.</p>
<p><img alt="" src="http://jpg1.lapl.org/00008/00008590.jpg"></p>
<p><em>(In an undated photo, Angels Flight in its original location, next to the Third Street tunnel at Hill Street. Credit: LAPL/Security Pacific National Bank Collection)</em></p>
<p>Angels Flight ran without a hitch from 1901 to 1969, when it was dismantled as part of the remaking of Bunker Hill, when the run-down neighborhood was razed in the name of progress.</p>
<p><img alt="" src="http://jpg1.lapl.org/00008/00008531.jpg"></p>
<p><em>(1969: Working at night, the archway for Angels Flight at Hill Street is being prepared for moving day when it will be put in storage for future use. LAPL/Herald-Examiner Collection)</em></p>
<p>In 1996, it was moved down the street and ran again until a fatal accident in 2001 — the first in its history. It reopened again in 2010, and ran until 2013, when a mechanical problem occurred that led an investigator to shut it down. </p>
<p>Gordon Pattison, 69, remembers riding Angels Flight every day as a child — he even had a favorite seat that he still considers "his seat," and he claims what he calls "effective ownership" of the railway. "Effective ownership," he says, "really gets down to who gets to decide the fate of a neighborhood. Is it the people that own the property, the politicians, the business owners? And what I say is that the people who live in the area who make use of the facilities every day, those people have part ownership in it, too, and should have a say in the fate of that neighborhood and the fate of things like Angels Flight."</p>
<p><img alt="" src="http://jpg2.lapl.org/pics49/00059374.jpg"></p>
<p><em>(1969: "The Castle" and "The Saltbox," historic Bunker Hill homes owned by Pattison's family, sit on blocks awaiting their removal to Montecito Heights. They later burned in arson fires at the Heritage Square site. LAPL/Herald-Examiner Collection)</em></p>
<p>Listen to the audio above to hear Angels Flight booster Richard Schave (of <a href="http://esotouric.com/">Esotouric Tours</a>, and a founder of the Downtown Art Walk) and Pattison talk about the need to get Angels Flight moving again — not only as a link in the city's mass transit system, but as a vital link in L.A.'s history — and to hear Pattison's memories of growing up on the Bunker Hill. It's a history fewer and fewer people are living witnesses to.</p><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/kpccofframp/~4/QYzL9pmjgc8" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>Thu, 30 Jul 2015 11:15:49 -0700http://www.scpr.org/programs/offramp/2015/07/30/43891/a-man-who-grew-up-on-bunker-hill-says-get-angels-f/Restaurant menu exhibit 'To Live and Dine in LA' tells Los Angeles's real history http://www.scpr.org/programs/offramp/2015/07/28/43866/roy-choi-restaurant-menu-exhibit-to-live-and-dine/http://feeds.scpr.org/~r/kpccofframp/~3/Vw1uCVN8XO0/
Patt Morrison | Off-Ramp<img src="http://a.scpr.org/i/6dbdc71fd75173f095a70d669a6596ae/109361-small.jpg" width="450" height="297" alt="" />
<p><i>The wine list from Little Joe's Italian Restaurant, which used to be in L.A.'s Chinatown.; Credit: LAPL Menu Collection</i></p>
<p>"To Live and Dine in L.A." is a <a href="http://www.lapl.org/whats-on/exhibits/live-and-dine-la">Los Angeles Public Library exhibit</a> and <a href="http://www.angelcitypress.com/products/ldla">book from Angel City Press</a> that tells the story of L.A. through selections from the library's huge collection of restaurant menus.</p>
<p>The book was written and edited by USC Annenberg Professor Josh Kun and includes a foreword by <strong>Roy Choi</strong>, the chef and restaurateur who, through the kogi taco, is essentially responsible for the food truck boom.</p>
<p><img alt="" src="http://www.lapl.org/sites/default/files/exhibits/live-and-dine-l.a./highlights/brown-derby1.jpg"></p>
<p><strong>KPCC's Patt Morrison</strong> met Choi at the restaurant of the Line Hotel in Koreatown to talk about what menus tell us about the growth of L.A. into the most diverse and interesting metropolis on the face of the Earth. Click the audio button above to listen to the long version of their conversation, or read excerpts below.</p>
<p><strong>The library has more than 9,000 menus in its collection. Themes emerge: highbrow, lowbrow, classes and fusions of food before we even used the word "fusion."</strong></p>
<blockquote>
<p>The book travels from the late 1800s all the way until the '80s. So you saw a city almost transform through these menus. You saw two war times. You saw a city that was basically dirt and dust into opulence. You saw Hollywood emerge. You saw racism, mainly during World War 2, saying ... "A portion of your meal will be donated back to keeping the Japs out of the city." And then also through indirect racism... The early Chinese menus using stereotypical figures and Charlie Chan-type figures, broadcast as "These are kind of subhuman people, we can kind of go look at them like at a zoo, and experience their life and be exotic for a day."</p>
</blockquote>
<p><img alt="" src="http://a.scpr.org/i/768dfe0c8265b0db658f91a63a88950e/109398-eight.jpg"></p>
<p><em>(KPCC's Patt Morrison at Roy Choi's Commissary. Credit: Robert Garrova)</em></p>
<p><strong>How important are these pieces of paper? </strong></p>
<blockquote>
<p>It's really like a novella on one piece of paper, because if you really study everything from the way it's laid out to the choices in which the food is being cooked, to the pictures, the graphic design and the fonts, it really tells you a lot about what these people were trying to say. Some were creating distant lands, and in some you could feel the energy of them being in a new land, enjoying the freedom of Los Angeles. There was this really innocent, kind of naive freedom to say, "You know what, I could put teriyaki on this burger, and it's OK. There's nobody I need to ask."</p>
</blockquote>
<p><strong>But L.A. had a reputation as a food desert! </strong></p>
<blockquote>
<p>You saw how much food that L.A. kind of invented. The first hamburger, the French dip, Cobb salad, tiki drinks. In many cases L.A. gets the short end of the stick, where people think we didn't create anything or we didn't have any influence on art or culture.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><img alt="" src="http://dbase1.lapl.org/images/menus/fullsize/i/rb02219-front.jpg"></p>
<p><strong>What now-closed restaurants in this book would you like to be able to eat at?</strong></p>
<blockquote>
<p>I would have loved to eat at some of these restaurants where they had a certain sense of humor to make their menu look like what they're serving. I'm looking at the Buffalo Steak menu, the whole menu is shaped like a buffalo. Zamboanga, which is a menu that's cut out as the shape of a chimpanzee, smoking a corncob pipe... The salad menu of The Old Drug Company, which is cut out as a bowl of salad.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><img alt="" src="http://www.lapl.org/sites/default/files/exhibits/live-and-dine-l.a./highlights/golden-pagoda1.jpg"></p>
<p><em>"To Live and Dine in L.A." is at the Central Library's Getty Gallery until Friday, Nov. 13, 2015. All menu images come from the L.A. Public Library. </em></p><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/kpccofframp/~4/Vw1uCVN8XO0" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>Tue, 28 Jul 2015 15:17:47 -0700http://www.scpr.org/programs/offramp/2015/07/28/43866/roy-choi-restaurant-menu-exhibit-to-live-and-dine/Are robot underpants the next big fitness craze?http://www.scpr.org/programs/offramp/2015/07/24/43789/are-robot-underpants-the-next-big-fitness-craze/http://feeds.scpr.org/~r/kpccofframp/~3/ZPxgyRbcW84/
Collin Friesen | Off-Ramp<img src="http://a.scpr.org/i/354ce63ec602618046feddfd67fb3a02/109093-small.jpg" width="450" height="338" alt="" />
<p><i>2015 Idea World Fitness and Nutrition Expo at the L.A. Convention Center.; Credit: Collin Friesen for KPCC</i></p>
<p>If you’ve ever seen a late-night infomercial for some new fitness program, or a product that’ll give you six-pack abs in six weeks, or even driven past a parking lot where people are pulling tires and heaving weighted balls at each other, you may have asked yourself: who the heck comes up with this stuff? There's a convention for that — it was last week in Los Angeles. I went to look for the next big thing in the world of sweating on purpose.</p>
<p><img alt="" src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51-9pda3z8L._SY300_.jpg"></p>
<p><em>(Did this ad start the abs thing?)</em></p>
<p>It’s been a rough couple of hours for <a href="http://www.liveathos.com/">team Athos</a>, the people marketing a new line of fitness gear at the <a href="http://www.ideafit.com/fitness-conferences/idea-world-fitness-convention/expo">Idea World Fitness and Nutrition Expo</a>. The PA system for their presentation on the mainstage isn’t working right, and over at their table, the only thing announcing their presence is a very small black-and-white sign. Athos’s Luis Nordmann says there was a shipping issue.</p>
<p>“We were at the NSCA conference last week,” says Nordmann. “And we’re still waiting on our booth. There’s supposed to be more here.”</p>
<p>Athos was just one of several hundred exhibitors on the Convention Center floor, pushing products and fighting for attention. In the meeting rooms upstairs, instructors from around the world were teaching other instructors new ways to keep the rest of us fit. </p>
<p>Kathie Davis, who’s been running this show since the '80s, says, “That first convention, we had high-impact aerobics, and that was all 33 years ago. Well now, the variety and number of fitness classes is just… staggering.”</p>
<p>Coming up with the new hot fitness thing can mean big money. A woman who was using a milk crate to rehab her knee came up with what would become known as the Reebok Step.</p>
<p><img alt="" src="https://www.dietandfitnessresources.co.uk/img/r/reebok-step-01.jpg" width="100%"></p>
<p>A Navy Seal invented TRX straps, and CrossFit went from members puking on Youtube videos to its own Olympic-style games on ESPN. But walking the floor at this year’s convention, you get the impression that there’s nothing really all that new in the fitness-verse. But there are <em>new</em> ways to do <em>old </em>things.</p>
<p>Like putting an elliptical trainer on a bike you can ride outside. Or adding a video game component to an indoor cycling class so you can race your pals. Or adding weights to a hula-hoop. Or mixing Pilates with boxing to form something called "piloxing." Or modifying those long heavy ropes people wave in the gym. And, of course, yoga shoes.</p>
<p>“I’ve taught freestyle, water aerobics, spin, double step, boxing, Viper…” says Amy Dixon, who was named fitness instructor of the year at this year’s convention, as she tries to remember all the different classes she’s ever taught. Dixon says fitness trends come in cycles. And come to think of it, when was the last the last time you saw a Jazzercise studio, a Thighmaster, or a "Buns of Steel" DVD?</p>
<p>But with all this variety, I had to ask, is any one fitness program — pros call them modalities — really better than the rest?</p>
<p>“I don’t think that any of these modalities are bad if people love doing them,” says Dixon. “We know that people need to move and eat less — the reality is people don’t want to hear that that's why we have trends that make no sense.”</p>
<p><img alt="" src="http://ifanboy.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/charles_atlas_ad.jpg"></p>
<p>Back at the stage, Athos finally has their presentation up and running. And as my goal was to find the next big fitness thing, I think this might be it. Athos workout gear has built-in Bluetooth sensors that let you know, on your smartphone, how hard and evenly you’re working each muscle group. Seriously, it lights up on a little diagram, turning your body into a video game.</p>
<p><img alt="" src="http://www.tuvie.com/wp-content/uploads/athos-biometric-apparel3.jpg" width="100%"></p>
<p><em>(Athos' fitness clothing)</em></p>
<p>Now, will the general public spend a couple hundred dollars for these robot underpants? (Which would have been a <em>way</em> better name by the way.) It’s a little early to tell. But if my time here has taught me anything, it’s this — if robot underpants do take off, so to speak, you can bet a few years down the road someone’ll be out here with a new and slightly improved version.</p>
<p>Like maybe they’ll find a way to put sand in them. We’ll call them <em>sandies</em>. Or maybe <em>sundies.</em></p><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/kpccofframp/~4/ZPxgyRbcW84" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>Fri, 24 Jul 2015 05:31:10 -0700http://www.scpr.org/programs/offramp/2015/07/24/43789/are-robot-underpants-the-next-big-fitness-craze/Go inside SoCal's Rainforest Flora: One of the world’s largest growers of air plantshttp://www.scpr.org/programs/offramp/2015/07/23/43792/go-inside-socal-s-rainforest-flora-one-of-the-worl/http://feeds.scpr.org/~r/kpccofframp/~3/AOqc2dbOTMQ/
Robert Garrova | Off-Ramp<img src="http://a.scpr.org/i/f66635ecd8674b67f8950a5c24c76fa7/109068-small.jpg" width="450" height="300" alt="" />
<p><i>The retail space at Rainforest Flora in Torrance features waterfalls, a koi pond and thousands of tillandsias that hang from the ceiling and cling to rock faces. ; Credit: Katherine Garrova </i></p>
<p>Paul T. Isley knows a lot about tillandsias, or "air plants" as they’re sometimes called. He’s written two books about them and says he regularly helps researchers at the Huntington Botanical Gardens.</p>
<p>“What’s cool about tillandsias is that so many of them are true epiphytes, which means that they can grow with no soil,” Isley says. “They’ve mastered the trick of being able to get their water and nutrients through their leaves, which allows them to grow literally on anything.”</p>
<p>After visiting a friend's house and seeing some tillandsias on his patio, Isley fell in love with the flora.</p>
<p>“They looked like they were from outer space or from the bottom of the ocean,” Isley says. “But I saw those plants and I just couldn’t believe that those could be real, that life could do something like that.”</p>
<p><img alt="" src="http://a.scpr.org/i/14adc8cb0ba8d414e02015f214cab30f/109070-full.jpg"></p>
<p>(<em>Alien-like tillandsias cling to a rock face at Rainforest Flora in Torrance. </em><em>Photo: Katherine Garrova</em>)</p>
<p>Isley and a couple partners started <a href="http://www.rainforestflora.com/">Rainforest Flora</a> in 1976. At his retail space in Torrance, Isley built an indoor garden with waterfalls, koi ponds and thousands of tillandsias that hang from the ceiling and cling to rock faces.</p>
<p>According to Isley, Rainforest Flora is now one of the world’s largest growers of tillandsias. When he first started out though, his weird-looking plants weren’t in high demand.</p>
<p>“In the beginning, there really wasn’t that much interest and there wasn’t anybody selling them. For two years I did arts and crafts fairs,” Isley says.</p>
<p>But Isley doesn’t sit at craft fairs much anymore. Home Depot is now his biggest customer.</p>
<p>“The plants are starting to hit the mainstream now,” he says. “More and more people are discovering how cool they are.”</p>
<p>And it’s not only big retailers that have caught on. Lovisa Staffland, a regular customer at Rainforest Flora, works for an outdoor living boutique in the Abbott Kinney neighborhood called <a href="http://www.ilandeivenice.com/">Ilan Dei</a>, where they sell tillandsia arrangements. </p>
<p>“We have noticed an increase in sales when it comes to air plants, definitely,” Staffland says. She says the increase in popularity of tillandsias might be because many people want plants in their house, but not everybody has the space. Isley agrees.</p>
<p>“As we go more and more towards urban environments and people live in smaller places, especially in Asia and in urban environments in our city — where you have apartments and stuff — they’re perfect because they don’t grow and take over, they’re so easy and you can put them on anything,” Isley says.</p>
<p>There’s a California-specific reason to collect tillandsias too.</p>
<p>“They’re drought tolerant,” Isley says. “They can go long periods without getting water because they have big hypodermal storage cells inside their leaves.” A dried-out tillandsia will even re-hydrate if left under water overnight.</p>
<p>In his 5,500-square-foot nursery, Isley explains that they keep up with demand by growing the vast majority of the tillandsias they sell in-house.</p>
<p><img alt="" src="http://a.scpr.org/i/ff71a4d76c3ee35f3d166c3eb380b0ee/109072-full.jpg"><em>(Germinating tillandsia seeds at Rainforest Flora in Torrance; Photo: Katherine Garrova.) </em></p>
<p>Once the seeds germinate, the young tillandsias have to be separated by hand. “That’s kind of what I do at night when I’m sitting there watching Netflix,” Isley says jokingly.</p>
<p>Some of the tillandsias that start their lives inside Isley’s nursery will be around for decades to come. Much like the orchid, tillandsias offer thousands of distinct varieties and a very long lifespan.</p>
<p>“One of the really interesting things people can do with tillandsias is that they can keep them over the course of their lives,” Isley says. “People go through families, they go through wives and husbands and kids and jobs and all this stuff, but to have plants you can keep with you all those years is pretty special... They’re there with you over all the years.”</p><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/kpccofframp/~4/AOqc2dbOTMQ" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>Thu, 23 Jul 2015 12:00:08 -0700http://www.scpr.org/programs/offramp/2015/07/23/43792/go-inside-socal-s-rainforest-flora-one-of-the-worl/ Song of the week: ‘I Forgive You’ by OOFJ (SHHHH! the J is silent)http://www.scpr.org/programs/offramp/2015/07/23/43779/song-of-the-week-i-forgive-you-by-oofj/http://feeds.scpr.org/~r/kpccofframp/~3/Ej4sRzF56IY/
Kevin Ferguson and Robert Garrova | Off-Ramp<img src="http://a.scpr.org/i/9b289bc924fb930ddf8bff935edead61/109055-small.jpg" width="450" height="301" alt="" />
<p><i>OOFJ is Danish composer Jenno Bjørnkjær and South African vocalist Katherine Mills-Rymer.; Credit: OOFJ</i></p>
<p>Off-Ramp’s song of the week is “I Forgive You” by Los Angeles-based duo OOFJ (the J is silent). OOFJ is Danish composer Jenno Bjørnkjær and South African vocalist Katherine Mills-Rymer. “I Forgive You” is on OOFJ’s sophomore album, “<a href="https://soundcloud.com/oofj/sets/oofjacutefeast/">Acute Feast</a>,” out now via Ring the Alarm Records.</p>
<p>OOFJ will play <a href="http://www.theecho.com/event/897445-red-bull-sound-select-baths-los-angeles/">Thursday, July 30 at the Echoplex</a>.</p><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/kpccofframp/~4/Ej4sRzF56IY" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>Thu, 23 Jul 2015 05:30:19 -0700http://www.scpr.org/programs/offramp/2015/07/23/43779/song-of-the-week-i-forgive-you-by-oofj/Sweet smoking Jesus! Vern Evans' amazing cosplay photos from San Diego Comic-Con 2015http://www.scpr.org/programs/offramp/2015/07/22/43771/sweet-smoking-jesus-vern-evans-amazing-cosplay-pho/http://feeds.scpr.org/~r/kpccofframp/~3/SooiYIlFU5g/
John Rabe | Off-Ramp<img src="http://a.scpr.org/i/b9488135b7df8767e16f3531e1709c62/109031-small.jpg" width="450" height="308" alt="" />
<p><i>Just a sample of the shots Vern Evans captured at San Diego Comic-Con 2015.; Credit: Vern Evans</i></p>
<p>Vern Evans, who works out of Los Angeles, has been shooting for a long time and can make <em>anybody</em> look great, even a cranky artist and a cranky public radio host:</p>
<p><img alt="" src="http://a.scpr.org/i/1837ca3c53296d7b502b2155924b91f2/54456-full.jpg"></p>
<p><em>(Artist Llyn Foulkes with KPCC's John Rabe at The Hammer. Credit: Vern Evans)</em></p>
<p>So I guess it's no surprise Evans managed to find something fresh at the most photographed event in the history of the known universe: this year's Comic-Con in San Diego.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.vernevansphoto.com/blog/63511-comic" title="Check out Vern Evans' photoset from SDCC2015">Check out Vern Evans' complete photoset from SDCC 2015.</a></p>
<p>Evans was raised in Texas and, "spellbound with images taken by Arbus, Frank, Capa, Avedon, Lange and Cartier-Bresson," attended Art Center College of Design in Pasadena.</p>
<p><img alt="" src="http://a.scpr.org/i/96ddba7c5998231064a056457cb60f0a/109040-eight.jpg"></p>
<p><em>(Vern Evans at SDCC with Evel Knievel cosplayer. Credit: Myles Pettengill)</em></p>
<p>When he's shooting, Evans says he asks the same thing of every subject: "Tell me your story," and the photo becomes "like a dream interpreted for its true meaning."</p><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/kpccofframp/~4/SooiYIlFU5g" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>Wed, 22 Jul 2015 12:39:27 -0700http://www.scpr.org/programs/offramp/2015/07/22/43771/sweet-smoking-jesus-vern-evans-amazing-cosplay-pho/Separating California high speed rail fact and fiction True Detective's second seasonhttp://www.scpr.org/programs/offramp/2015/07/22/43734/separating-california-high-speed-rail-fact-and-fic/http://feeds.scpr.org/~r/kpccofframp/~3/ATJdfJiCEdo/
Kevin Ferguson and Collin Campbell | Off-Ramp<img src="http://a.scpr.org/i/09647f3c226e8925de6cc1dd2e839edd/108908-small.jpg" width="450" height="253" alt="" />
<p><i>A rail yard near Union Station in Episode 5 of True Detective, Season 2; Credit: HBO</i></p>
<p><em>Off-Ramp producer Kevin Ferguson is producing a podcast about Southern California and the new season of "True Detective." Subscribe to it on <a href="http://itunes.com/vinci">iTunes</a> and <a href="http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/welcome-to-vinci-a-podcast-about-true-detective">Stitcher</a>. We're also mapping the show's significant and lesser-known <a href="http://projects.scpr.org/maps/welcome-to-vinci/">locations</a>.</em></p>
<p>California's high-speed rail route continues to <a href="http://www.scpr.org/news/2015/06/09/52303/high-speed-rail-opponents-expected-to-converge-at/">generate lots of debate</a> this year. But in "True Detective," it might be the MacGuffin for show's second season.</p>
<p>Without the train, the mayor of fictional "Vinci, California" doesn't have a reason to drive up and down the state dumping hazardous waste. Frank Semyon, the scheming developer played by Vince Vaughn, would still be living in his pristine hilltop mansion if not for bad business dealings around the rail route. And the detectives would never have gotten in the mess they're in now. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvrdRRHRrpk" title="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvrdRRHRrpk">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvrdRRHRrpk</a></p>
<p>The presentation given by Semyon in the first episode sets up the bullet train's role in Season 2. He's gambled his livelihood to go legitimate and buy up land near an imminent high speed rail train.</p>
<p>Now, Semyon's business partner is dead, his money is lost and he's struggling to regain control of his life.</p>
<p>The train is <a href="http://www.scpr.org/news/2015/01/06/49092/california-to-begin-work-on-nation-s-first-bullet/">a real life thing</a>. Back in 2008, California voters approved a bond (<a href="http://www.scpr.org/news/2008/10/29/1764/proposition-1a-would-approve-bond-money-for-high-s/">Proposition 1A</a>, not 1) that would fund construction a high speed rail line that would link up San Francisco and Los Angeles in a matter of hours.</p>
<p>But can you, like Semyon said, make a fortune off of buying up land and building developments like that? Did the federal government ever really "guarantee cost overages?"</p>
<p>"[Semyon's] scheme appears to be: buy land near one these stations and develop it, and maybe sell the land, maybe just own it but make a lot of money," says LA Weekly's Hillel Aron, who <a href="http://www.laweekly.com/news/just-how-ridiculous-is-true-detectives-high-speed-rail-plot-line-5774399">dug into the topic.</a></p>
<p>To do that, Aron says, Semyon would need inside information about where the stations would go. Could that actually happen?</p>
<p>"They're figuring out the route now, in <a href="http://www.scpr.org/news/2015/06/09/52303/high-speed-rail-opponents-expected-to-converge-at/">this long series of public meetings</a>, and it's all done in the open. Everyone is angry about it," he says. "The idea that there would be inside information about the stations is questionable." </p>
<p>And the guaranteed cost overruns from the Federal Government? Ridiculous, says Aron.</p>
<p>"The federal government is subsidizing a small part of the actual construction of the rail line. And it is conceivable that a local government would give a tax break to local development," he said. "If the federal government guaranteed cost overages, developers would just build the most monstrous, ridiculous thing they could—knowing the federal government is going to pay for anything over what they said it was going to cost."</p>
<p><strong>Beyond Los Angeles</strong></p>
<p>This season of "True Detective" doesn't limit itself to Los Angeles and Vinci, of course. As the plot has unraveled, its characters have driven further and further away from the bustling hubs of commerce in the LA Metro area into weirder, more remote corners. Land where the train goes, probably.</p>
<p>Semyon never says where he plans on developing all this rail adjacent land, but a good guess might be Fresno and the Central Valley, home to Valley Public Radio. Reporters <a href="http://kvpr.org/people/jeffrey-hess">Jeffrey Hess</a> and <a href="http://kvpr.org/people/ezra-david-romero">Ezra Romero</a> have been covering the rail project.</p>
<p>"By virtue of California being the size of the state that it is, this is a project that you could describe as the state dreaming big," says Hess. "Fresno and the central valley are between LA and San Francisco, which have — for the most part — built out as much as they can go. Those two big cities need a way to connect."</p>
<p>Romero says the project has started plenty of speculation on the part of developers in cities like Fresno. "If you ask a supporter of high speed rail in Fresno, they'd say it means a rejuvenated downtown. They're saying [Fresno] can be a regional hub. People can live in Fresno and take a forty five minute train to San Francisco, and I think that would change the lifestyle of someone in Fresno."</p>
<p>Opponents of the project worry about cost overruns, unrealistically optimistic travel times and environmental impact.</p>
<p>What's Hess' take on Semyon's get rich quick scheme?</p>
<p>"It's going to be years and years and years before developers of that sort end up making money," he says. "They have ten years before the first leg gets built. It's several years after that before it connects Los Angeles and San Francisco."</p>
<p>Earlier this year, rail officials said they were as much as a year behind schedule in <a href="http://www.scpr.org/news/2015/02/13/49814/high-speed-rail-agency-behind-schedule-in-buying-l/">buying the land needed to start construction</a> on the first 29-mile stretch in the Central Valley,</p>
<p>Still, developers are already on the move, at least in Downtown Fresno. "I talked to a guy a couple months ago who said if you haven't gotten your chips down on this, then you're too late. You've already missed the boat," Hess says.</p>
<p>And if a dead city manager ran off with every last penny you saved up? That boat might be up a creek.</p><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/kpccofframp/~4/ATJdfJiCEdo" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>Wed, 22 Jul 2015 10:32:49 -0700http://www.scpr.org/programs/offramp/2015/07/22/43734/separating-california-high-speed-rail-fact-and-fic/Jeffrey Vallance channels famous dead artists for ‘The Medium is the Message’ http://www.scpr.org/programs/offramp/2015/07/22/43689/jeffrey-vallance-channels-famous-dead-artists-for/http://feeds.scpr.org/~r/kpccofframp/~3/jYV46mdkfRQ/
John Rabe and Robert Garrova | Off-Ramp<img src="http://a.scpr.org/i/968020e29387d37056362fe11b54e835/108744-small.jpg" width="450" height="301" alt="" />
<p><i>KPCC's John Rabe and Jeffrey Vallance with Vallance's "Duchamp Spirit Readymade," a reliquary showing off some Duchamp cufflinks. The work is at CB1 Gallery in LA from July 25 through September 5, 2015.; Credit: John Rabe</i></p>
<p>Art prankster Jeffrey Vallance’s new show “The Medium is the Message” opens at downtown L.A.'s <a href="http://cb1gallery.com/project/jeffrey-vallance-the-medium-is-the-message/">CB1 Gallery</a> on July 25. A mix of large prints and small objects, Vallance says the inspiration for the show came from a séance he held in London a few years ago.</p>
<p>For the séance, Vallance hired five psychics to channel famous dead artists — Frida Kahlo, Leonardo DaVinci, Marcel Duchamp, Vincent Van Gogh, and Jackson Pollock. A <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Fort">Fortean</a> at heart, Vallance doesn't necessarily believe in a contactable spirit realm, but just wanted to observe the phenomena — and make some art.</p>
<p>John Rabe interviewed Vallance at the gallery to talk about “The Medium is the Message” and why it’s good not to take contemporary art too seriously.</p>
<p><strong>Tell us more about the prints inspired by the séance.</strong></p>
<blockquote>
<p>"This was kind of a funny program because it wasn’t very spooky, I didn’t want it to be that way. I set the thing up as kind of an academic panel. So I had the channeled artists sitting in chairs so you could ask them questions. I didn’t know what they were going to say, so I asked them questions like, 'Is there art in the afterlife?' The funny thing is, like, they were pretty right on. They were saying that, like, they can look into the minds of some of the artists and sometimes all they can see is dollar signs. Well, it kind of made sense.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p><img alt="" src="http://a.scpr.org/i/dc2106e65cc1299b3c19d72badfcef3c/108757-eight.jpg"></p>
<p><em>(A "Spirit Photo" of Jeffrey Vallance, by Jeffrey Vallance) </em></p>
<p><strong>... and then, in the tradition of Victorian Spirit photography, you made these prints.</strong></p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Yeah, as I was listening to the spirits talk, I was trying to imagine what it would look like if you could see them in the spirit. Obviously we were just seeing the psychics that were channeling them. But I was trying to imagine what it would look like if you could get a photograph of them at that time. So I was looking at the spirit photos from the turn of the century. And if you look at those they look very fake. They have superimposed imagery and certain photo tricks that look to our eye very naive and I sort of like that. So I try to do things that look like the spirit photos, but they’re all digital.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p><strong>I checked with one of your friends from 30, 40 years ago — Michael Uhlenkott — and I said ‘Does Jeffrey actually believe in séances?’ And he said, ‘I don’t know.’</strong></p>
<blockquote>
<p>"I would say I’m a Fortean, which is one of the followers of Charles Fort. Basically, I observe; I don’t judge. So I don’t believe but also I don’t disbelieve as well. So I’m kind of neutral. I just want to bring these events about and see how they go and how I can learn from them. But I wouldn’t say I’m, like, a follower of spiritualism and that whole thing."</p>
</blockquote>
<p><strong>Did it change your mind about anything?</strong></p>
<blockquote>
<p>“I don’t think so. But it just made me realize that the world is a lot weirder than I would have thought."</p>
</blockquote>
<p><strong>There’s a table full of smaller items here, including a little plywood box, the Kahlo Spirit Crystal... What’s this?</strong></p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Frida, when she was channeled, she was talking a lot about the afterlife. And she sort of saw the afterlife as sort of being this huge kind of shattered crystal that went into all these rainbows and these colors. And then she said something like, ‘And that is art.’ So I thought, okay, that is art. So I will make that, I’ll make the Frida Kahlo Spirit Crystal.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p><img alt="" src="http://a.scpr.org/i/64af1d2c5523e48671ad0dff76fa119a/108758-eight.jpg"></p>
<p><em>(Kahlo Spirit Crystal, by Jeffrey Vallance) </em></p>
<p><strong>I want you to tell the outlet cover story, going back to your first show at LACMA.</strong></p>
<blockquote>
<p>"That was in 1977 and I was a student. I wanted to have an art show and I couldn’t wait, I couldn’t wait until I graduated. So I was looking around and I went to LACMA one day and I noticed that under the paintings along these walls they had the wall sockets. And I took note of that and I thought, oh, I can buy the same exact outlet covers... So I did that. I bought the same kind of outlet covers. And then I painted these dopey little scenes on it that made no sense really. And then I went back to LACMA and I was dressed in, like, a janitor’s outfit. I had, like, a name tag and a tool box. And walked in and unscrewed their wall sockets and put mine on with these little scenes on it. And no one said anything because it looked like I was doing my job, in a way. And then for years, every time LACMA would have a show, I would have a show at the same time. I would send out invitations, but in my show you would just look a little lower."</p>
</blockquote>
<p>On Saturday, Aug. 8, at 8pm, Vallance will hold a séance at the gallery in which psychic Joseph Ross will channel dead art critics. According to gallerist Clyde Beswick, "a telepathic call will be sent out to art critics in the afterlife willing to speak out about Vallance’s artwork. And heaven only knows who might manifest!"</p>
<p><em>"Jeffrey Vallance: The Medium is the Message" and "Emily Davis Adams: Painting of Levitated Mass" are on view from July 25 through Sept. 5 at CB1 Gallery, 1923 S. Santa Fe Ave. 90021. Meet the artists at a reception Saturday, July 25, 3 - 6pm.</em></p><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/kpccofframp/~4/jYV46mdkfRQ" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>Wed, 22 Jul 2015 06:00:30 -0700http://www.scpr.org/programs/offramp/2015/07/22/43689/jeffrey-vallance-channels-famous-dead-artists-for/Doyle estate wins again — against 'Mr Holmes' — despite SCOTUS ruling in SoCal casehttp://www.scpr.org/programs/offramp/2015/07/20/43736/doyle-estate-wins-again-against-mr-holmes-despite/http://feeds.scpr.org/~r/kpccofframp/~3/l50Dpp_8uhY/
John Rabe | Off-Ramp<img src="http://a.scpr.org/i/0df914096a938ac67de8d6b621249ebd/108789-small.jpg" width="450" height="270" alt="" />
<p><i>Sir Ian McKellen as Sherlock Holmes</i></p>
<p>Back in November, <a href="http://www.scpr.org/programs/offramp/2014/11/03/40153/la-author-defendant-says-supreme-court-move-frees/">Off-Ramp interviewed local author Leslie Klinger</a> about his victory in the US Supreme Court against the estate of Conan Doyle.</p>
<p>Klinger co-edited "In the Company of Sherlock Holmes," a new series of short stories about the detective, and was then sued by the estate of Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes. The estate claimed the new stories used copyrighted details of the Doyle stories.</p>
<p>In the Klinger case, the Supreme Court upheld a lower court ruling that said, "it appears that the Doyle estate is concerned not with specific alterations in the depiction of Holmes or Watson ... but with any such story that is published without payment to the estate of a licensing fee." As Klinger put it, that lower court ruling said the estate was "basically extortionist."</p>
<p>At the time, Klinger expressed hope that creative artists would be able to stand up to the estate's future efforts "to threaten creators."</p>
<p>"On the film industry side," he said, "It's been the practice for motion picture producers to just pay the estate, because it's fast and relatively inexpensive, compared to going to court."</p>
<p>The next test was when the estate sued Mitch Cullin, who wrote the book "Mr Holmes," starring Ian McKellen, is based on, claiming he used elements of the original Doyle stories that were protected by copyright, including the fact that Holmes retired to the countryside in his old age.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>In online remarks ... the writer called it “an extortion attempt pure and simple, brought on by the desire to make money once the film version of the book came to their attention.”</p>
<p>— <a href="http://www.santafenewmexican.com/life/features/legal-settlement-clears-way-for-u-s-release-of-mr/article_6d7f55ff-2d72-5065-a1b9-39c6a5741d5e.html">Santa Fe New Mexican, 7/17/2015</a></p>
</blockquote>
<p>But, as the newspaper reported, the Doyle estate has again reached an undisclosed settlement, and you're able to see "Mr Holmes" in your local theater.</p>
<p>The website <a href="http://www.ihearofsherlock.com/search/label/%23FreeSherlock#.Va1NR_n09dB">I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere</a> is tracking the Doyle estate's various efforts, under the #FreeSherlock hashtag.</p><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/kpccofframp/~4/l50Dpp_8uhY" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>Mon, 20 Jul 2015 12:36:12 -0700http://www.scpr.org/programs/offramp/2015/07/20/43736/doyle-estate-wins-again-against-mr-holmes-despite/By women, for women: History and California's drought collide at Rockhaven Sanitariumhttp://www.scpr.org/programs/offramp/2015/07/17/43687/by-women-for-women-history-and-california-s-drough/http://feeds.scpr.org/~r/kpccofframp/~3/hqw2E-6VlWU/
Robert Garrova | Off-Ramp<img src="http://a.scpr.org/i/28c12e6a062ca258f1ba1fa8c610eea9/108741-small.jpg" width="450" height="343" alt="" />
<p><i>Rockhaven Sanitarium </i></p>
<p>Behind the stone wall of the old Rockhaven Sanitarium in Montrose, engineer David Gould shows off one of the Crescenta Valley Water District’s latest projects: A well that will pull water from under an out-of-use women’s mental health facility that was opened in the 1920s.</p>
<p><a href="http://a.scpr.org/i/466412af89170ad6c1a4dc5ce4686b65/108743-eight.jpg"><img alt="" src="http://a.scpr.org/i/466412af89170ad6c1a4dc5ce4686b65/108743-eight.jpg"></a></p>
<p><em>(The water well on the old Rockhaven Sanitarium site) </em><br>
<br>
"It goes down 385 feet into the ground and produces groundwater from our local Verdugo basin," Gould explains. </p>
<p>As part of a joint project with the City of Glendale, the Crescenta Valley Water District plans to tap an estimated 450 gallons of water per minute, which would supply about 1,200 homes a year.</p>
<p>The water is high in nitrates, so it will have to be treated at a nearby facility, and that requires the construction of an underground pipeline. In the past, water agencies might not have bothered to take such steps, but California's drought is changing that.</p>
<p>"Prior to the year 2000, there hadn’t been a well drilled in the Crescenta Valley since 1954," says Gould. "We are turning over rocks."</p>
<p>Gould says the plan is to have the Rockhaven well online and providing local water by the middle of October.</p>
<p>"We’re not taking imported water from the Colorado River or the state project, which is up in the Sacramento area," he says.</p>
<p>The project is getting assistance in the form of Prop 84 California drought relief funds. "Seventy-five percent of the cost of this project, or about $900,000, is being paid for by the state," he says.</p>
<p>So why aren’t more wells like this springing up? It’s because even though the water may be <em>under</em> ground, you need some space <em>above</em> ground in order to build the well.</p>
<p>"We’ve known that the water is here for a long time," Gould says. "The complications that come up is finding land. The Crescenta Valley is 99 percent built out."</p>
<p>Which makes the 3.5-acre Rockhaven Sanitarium site, purchased by the City of Glendale in 2008, more than just a patch of land with some historic buildings on it.</p>
<p>"This provided an opportunity for us, because this Rockhaven site has been kept in the state it’s had since 1929," Gould says.</p>
<p>So what happens to the sanitarium?</p>
<p>The group <a href="http://www.friendsofrockhaven.org/">Friends of Rockhaven</a> wants to see the site in Montrose preserved.</p>
<p>Built in the 1920s by Agnes Richards, Rockhaven was one of many facilities that sprouted up in the Crescenta Valley in order to provide a place of healing.</p>
<p>Being an abandoned sanitarium, the place now has its share of ghost stories, says docent Phaedra Walton. But Rockhaven wasn't exactly Arkham Asylum, either. Friends of Rockhaven founding member Joanna Linkchorst says if there are spirits haunting the buildings that were home to patients for so many years, they’re most likely happy ones.</p>
<p><img alt="" src="http://a.scpr.org/i/19977d3f278ea82edb7a2936a915faf4/108742-eight.jpg"></p>
<p><em>(Rockhaven Sanitarium founder Agnes Richards) </em></p>
<p>"[Richards] was absolutely appalled at the treatment of mental patients at the time," Linkchorst says.</p>
<p>After serving with the Red Cross during WWI, Richards ended up at Patton State Hospital in San Bernardino. But she didn’t stay.</p>
<p>"The pictures of <a href="http://www.sbcity.org/about/history/streets_n_places/patton_state_hospital.asp">Patton State Hospital</a> — it’s this big gothic-like castle and it would be incredibly intimidating to be in there, and Agnes decided that something needed to be different," says Linkchorst.</p>
<p>Instead of gothic dormitories, Richards built stand-alone cottages with names like The Willows and The Pines, while towering oak trees and meticulously landscaped rose gardens made Rockhaven a place where patients wanted to venture outdoors.</p>
<p>Linkchorst points to a statue that sits in the middle of the Rockhaven property that’s become a mascot for the place.</p>
<p><img alt="" src="http://a.scpr.org/i/7d3d1420dbecec182e2b6d08d1947fcd/108648-eight.jpg"></p>
<p><em>('The Lady of Rockhaven' Credit: Maya Sugarman/KPCC)</em></p>
<p>"This is a lady that we call The Lady of Rockhaven. It was a Gladding McBean statue that was designed in 1921 and named simply reclining nude," Linkchorst says. "The way that she’s drinking in the sun and looking up and that beautiful faint smile gives you the feeling that you feel here: this is a place to relax and breathe and recover and become yourself again."</p>
<p>The groundbreaking style of care and beautiful surroundings at Rockhaven attracted Hollywood types too. Billie Burke — who played Glinda the Good Witch in "The Wizard of Oz" — was once a resident. So was Clark Gable’s first wife, Josephine Dillon. And then there was Gladys — Marilyn Monroe’s mom.</p>
<p>"Gladys felt the need to wander. She is our most infamous resident. And there were a couple of times that she attempted to escape," Linkchorst says. "She managed to get out a couple of times. One of them, she tied her bedsheets together and made a dramatic escape through a tiny window in her closet."</p>
<p><img alt="" src="http://a.scpr.org/i/b03f8fe741c0f45e9f8b316edf95e16e/108610-eight.jpg"></p>
<p><em>(The closet window through which Gladys escaped Rockhaven. Credit: Maya Sugarman/KPCC)</em></p>
<p>But most Rockhaven patients were in no hurry to leave. Some women stayed until their deaths, leaving behind their most treasured belongings. On the second floor of The Willows cottage, Linkchorst reveals some of the forgotten items she’s hoping to archive: souvenir photos, fur coats, hatboxes full of cards.</p>
<p><img alt="" src="http://a.scpr.org/i/572cc64968f411845051eecfe594b912/108649-eight.jpg"></p>
<p><em>(A Paris Inn souvenir card left behind by a former Rockhaven resident. Credit: Maya Sugarman/KPCC)</em></p>
<p>"Agnes came from a background of running statewide insane asylums that are kind of the true atrocious sort of places that you see like in American Horror Story," says Emily Lanigan, who is also with the Friends of Rockhaven. "And so she really worked to created a place of serenity, of beautiful surroundings, where women were treated with dignity."</p>
<p>But Lanigan thinks Rockhaven should be remembered not just for its serenity but for its pioneering founder.</p>
<p>"This was a woman-run facility. It was run by women, it was for women. And this was in 1923," says Lanigan. "And this was a time when a woman-owned business in general was kind of a rarity. But especially a woman-owned medical facility. A health facility? A mental health facility? That was unheard of."</p>
<p>It’s not clear yet what the City of Glendale will do with the sanitarium land. But Linkchorst hopes Rockhaven will one day be reopened as a respite for all.</p>
<p>"The Friends of Rockhaven are working with the city and we are hoping one day to be able to open this up to the public as a historic park," Linkchorst says. "We hope to be able to have a museum for the Crescenta Valley in here. And just park space where people can come and rest and recover just as they have been able for almost a century."</p><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/kpccofframp/~4/hqw2E-6VlWU" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>Fri, 17 Jul 2015 11:47:57 -0700http://www.scpr.org/programs/offramp/2015/07/17/43687/by-women-for-women-history-and-california-s-drough/Song of the week: 'Them Changes' by Thundercat http://www.scpr.org/programs/offramp/2015/07/17/43620/song-of-the-week-them-changes-by-thundercat/http://feeds.scpr.org/~r/kpccofframp/~3/FVtBkr1PXJU/
Kevin Ferguson and Robert Garrova | Off-Ramp<img src="http://a.scpr.org/i/e0d70ba57f96b11cffd23b7f4d4b86ba/108739-small.jpg" width="299" height="450" alt="" />
<p><i>LA bassist Stephen Bruner aka Thundercat ; Credit: Brainfeeder </i></p>
<p>Off-Ramp's song of the week is “Them Changes” by Los Angeles bassist Stephen Bruner, better known as Thundercat. “Them Changes” is off Thundercat’s album “The Beyond/Where the Giants Roam,” which was released this June on Brainfeeder Records. "Them Changes" features musicians Flying Lotus and LA-based jazz sax player Kamasi Washington. Thundercat will play <a href="http://www.shrineauditorium.com/events/detail/275496">LA’s Shrine Expo Hall on August 8</a>. </p>
<p> </p><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/kpccofframp/~4/FVtBkr1PXJU" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>Fri, 17 Jul 2015 06:13:19 -0700http://www.scpr.org/programs/offramp/2015/07/17/43620/song-of-the-week-them-changes-by-thundercat/A rare North Korean in Los Angeles says she just wants to blend inhttp://www.scpr.org/programs/offramp/2015/07/16/43668/a-rare-north-korean-in-los-angeles-says-she-just-w/http://feeds.scpr.org/~r/kpccofframp/~3/pCkDzetKZPU/
Kyung Jin Lee with Sarah Chee | Off-Ramp<img src="http://a.scpr.org/i/c896e37384f056442ef14f8a013bc86a/108688-small.jpg" width="450" height="306" alt="" />
<p><i>"Elise Park" cooking pork belly at her home in Koreatown. We're not showing her face or using her real name to protect her brothers in North Korea.; Credit: Kyung Jin Lee</i></p>
<p>The United States is home to more Korean migrants than any other country. According to the <a href="http://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/korean-immigrants-united-states">Migration Policy Institute</a>, 1.1m live in the U.S., followed by Japan (699,000), and China (222,000). Some 226,000 have settled in the L.A. area. Most came from South Korea, but there's also a small but growing number who defected from North Korea in the last 10 years — people like "Elise Park," who doesn't usually tell people she's from North Korea.</p>
<p>Like many of the few hundred North Korean immigrants living in the U.S., Park hides in plain sight within the larger Korean-American community. Park, who asked us to use a pseudonym to protect her two brothers who still live in the North, says she doesn't want to stick out — and that Korean-Americans make false assumptions, asking too many inappropriate questions about her personal life.</p>
<p>She says people ask, “'How did you come? How did you get enough money to be here?’ I think, why are you so curious? You don’t ask others, just people from North Korea. I just want to be treated like everyone else.”</p>
<p>Park left North Korea in 2004 because she lost hope for building a life there — her family background prevented her from attending the best schools or getting a good job. She lived in the northernmost province of the country, making it easier to cross the Tumen River into China. Then she went to South Korea, then L.A.</p>
<p>While in South Korea, she got interested in real estate and realized she needed to learn English. So she worked three jobs, saved enough money and got help from church pastors to come to the U.S. in 2011. Park now attends a local community college and says she prefers it here.</p>
<p>“This is a land of immigrants,” she says. “At work, this person is a Mexican immigrant, this person is an Italian immigrant. That’s what’s comfortable for me.”</p>
<p>Officially, there are <a href="http://www.voanews.com/content/four-more-north-korean-defectors-arrived-in-us-in-july/1973101.html">fewer than 200 North Korean refugees</a> who’ve come directly from China. But many more come as South Korean citizens after resettling in the South. They’re often referred as “double defectors,” because they left both countries. These North Koreans often leave the South because of the <a href="http://www.dw.de/north-korea-defectors-face-long-road-to-integration-in-south/a-16973748">discrimination and disrespect</a> they experience: They’re <a href="http://ajw.asahi.com/article/asia/korean_peninsula/AJ201403250056">accused of being spies</a> — and <a href="http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_northkorea/677750.html">they earn less</a> than their Southern counterparts.</p>
<p><img alt="" src="http://a.scpr.org/i/8910485bf33f32a8af40714dfc2ed900/108740-full.jpg"></p>
<p><em>(Pastor Young Gu Kim at his church in Torrance. Credit: Kyung Jin Lee)</em></p>
<p>Pastor Young Gu Kim runs "North Koreans in America," a grassroots support group based in L.A.’s Koreatown. He says all North Koreans need a lot of support once they get here.</p>
<p>“The hard thing is that those who left North Korea… they wander in China for three to four years. Those who are lucky meet missionaries right away, but the rest are <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/north-korea-human-traffickers-and-chinese-market-brides-64397">sold to Chinese people</a>. Those years in China were really difficult. So that’s how they have diseases and trauma," Kim says.</p>
<p>Kim started working with North Koreans around 15 years ago. Like many South Korean Christians aiding Northerners, his work with defectors is a way to fulfill a larger dream of starting a church in the North. He spends his days driving people to and from appointments. He translates for them, helping them find jobs and enroll kids in school. He recently started a tutoring class every Saturday for kids of North Korean immigrants in Fullerton.</p>
<p>Kim says it’s important to build an infrastructure of support for young people, since their parents don’t know the language or culture here. Whether you’re a kid or an adult, he says there’s a lot of differences and misunderstandings between Korean immigrants from the North and South. And they need to be seen as different cultures now, since North and South Korea have been divided for more than 60 years.</p>
<p>“They don’t trust anyone,” Kim says. “And they don’t say thank you. Even if they do something wrong, they don’t say sorry. Because if they said it in North Korea, they were already dead. If I do something wrong, I have to grab someone and have them take the blame for them, to survive.”</p>
<p>Pastor Kim calls it a "small reunification" of North and South right here in the U.S. But, “Becoming one family does not mean living together and taking responsibility for them. It’s about making a phone call, showing interest — like during holidays, sharing a turkey. It’s not that hard.”</p>
<p>But Elise Park is more interested in getting her degree than "reuniting" immigrants from North and South. After dinner, Park sits down to do her homework. She stays up until 3 a.m. to complete her oceanography assignment — the technical jargon is tough to understand. But she’s working hard to become an international real estate appraiser and dreams of returning to North Korea one day.</p>
<p>“My brothers are there,” she says. “Also, there’s no real estate in North Korea. They don’t know the concept. I want people to know how the world works.”</p>
<p>Pastor Kim says North Koreans are like onions — if you keep peeling, there are more layers to discover of their history, culture and politics.</p>
<p>But most North Korean immigrants want the same thing as the rest of us: to fit in.</p>
<p><em>Note: We've corrected the lead paragraph to reflect that there are more migrant Koreans in the United States - not Southern California - than anywhere outside Korea.</em></p><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/kpccofframp/~4/pCkDzetKZPU" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>Thu, 16 Jul 2015 12:10:03 -0700http://www.scpr.org/programs/offramp/2015/07/16/43668/a-rare-north-korean-in-los-angeles-says-she-just-w/